NOTE: The following is Dr. Thompson’s response to a desperate letter from his friend Ralph Steadman in England, on the subject of raising children.
Dear Ralph,
I received your tragic letter about your savage, glue-sniffing son and read it while eating breakfast at 4:30 A.M. in a Waffle House on the edge of Mobile Bay . . . and I made some notes on your problem, at the time, but they are not the kind of notes that any decent man would want to send to a friend. ... So I put them away until I could bring a little more concentration to bear on the matter. . . . And I have come to this conclusion:
Send the crazy little bugger to Australia. We can get him a job herding sheep somewhere deep in the outback, and that will straighten him out for sure; or at least it will keep him busy.
England is the wrong place for a boy who wants to smash windows. Because he’s right, of course. He should smash windows. Anybody growing up in England today without a serious urge to smash windows is probably too dumb for help.
You are reaping the whirlwind, Ralph. Where in the name of art or anything else did you ever see anything that said you could draw queer pictures of the prime minister and call her worse than a denatured pig— but your own son shouldn’t want to smash windows?
We are not privy to that level of logic, Ralph. They don’t even teach it at Oxford.
My own son, thank God, is a calm and rational boy who is even now filling out his applications to Yale and Tufts and Bennington and various other Eastern, elitist schools . . . and all he’s cost me so far is a hellish drain of something like $10,000 a year just to keep him off the streets and away from the goddamn windows. . . .
What do windows cost, Ralph? They were about $55 apiece when I used to smash them—even the big plate-glass kind—but now they probably cost about $300. Which is cheap, when you think on it. A wild boy with a good arm could smash about 30 plate-glass windows a year and still cost you less than $10,000 per annum.
Is that right? Are my figures correct?
Yeah. They are. If Juan smashed 30 big windows a year, I would still save $1,000.
So send the boy to me, Ralph—along with a certified cheque for $10,000— and I’ll turn him into a walking profit machine.
Indeed. Send me all those angry little limey bastards you can round up. We can do business on this score. Just whip them over here on the Airbus with a $10k cheque for each one, and after that you can go about your filthy, destructive business with a clear conscience.
The prime minister is a denatured pig, Ralph, and you should beat her like a gong. Draw horrible cartoons of the bitch, and sell them for many dollars to The Times and Private Eye . . . but don’t come weeping to me when your own son takes it into his head to smash a few windows.
Have you ever put a brick through a big plate-glass window, Ralph? It makes a wonderful goddamn noise, and the people inside run around like rats in a firestorm. It’s fun, Ralph, and a bargain at any price.
What do you think we’ve been doing all these years? Do you think you were getting paid for your goddamn silly art?
No, Ralph. You were getting paid to smash windows. And that is an art in itself. The trick is getting paid for it.
What? Hello? Are you still there, Ralph?
You sniveling, hypocritical bastard. If your son had your instincts, he’d be shooting at the prime minister, instead of just smashing windows.
Are you ready for that? How are you going to feel when you wake up one of these mornings and flip on the telly at Old Loose Court just in time to catch a news bulletin about the prime minister being shot through the gizzard in Piccadilly Circus . . . and then some BBC hot rod comes up with exclusive pictures of the dirty freak who did it, and he turns out to be your own son?
Think about that, Ralph; and don’t bother me anymore with your minor problems. . . . Just send the boy over to me; I’ll soften him up with trench work until his green card runs out, then we’ll move him on to Australia. And five years from now, you’ll get an invitation to a wedding at a sheep ranch in Perth. . . .
And so much for that, Ralph. We have our own problems to deal with. Children are like TV sets. When they start acting weird, whack them across the eyes with a big rubber basketball shoe.
How’s that for wisdom?
Something wrong with it?
No. I don’t think so. Today’s plate-glass window is tomorrow’s BBC story. Keep that in mind and you won’t go wrong. Just send me the boys and the cheques. . . .
I think you know what I mean. It’s what happens when the son of a famous English artist shows up on the telly with a burp gun in his hand and the still-twitching body of the prime minister at his feet. . . .
You can’t even run from that one, Ralph—much less hide, so if you think it’s a real possibility all I can advise you to do is stock up on whiskey and codeine. That will keep you dumb enough to handle the shock when that ratchet-head, glue-crazy little freak finally does the deed. . . .
The subsequent publicity will be a nightmare. But don’t worry—your friends will stand behind you. I’ll catch one of those Polar-Route flights out of Denver and be there eight hours after it happens. We’ll have a monster news conference in the . . . lobby of Brown’s Hotel.
Say nothing until I get there. Don’t even claim bloodlines with the boy. Say nothing. I’ll talk to the press—which is, after all, my business.
Your buddy,
HST
P.S.: Jesus, Ralph, I think I might have misspoke myself when I said ten thousand would cover it for the murderous little bastard. No. Let’s talk about thirty, Ralph. You’ve got a real monster on your hands. I wouldn’t touch him for less than thirty.
April 21, 1986